


Space Watch, Fire Watch

by 4eeldrive



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alien Invasion, Co-workers, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Flushed Romance | Matesprits, Helmstrolls, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Workplace Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-19
Updated: 2017-10-23
Packaged: 2018-12-17 12:06:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 15,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11851248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/4eeldrive/pseuds/4eeldrive
Summary: Park Ranger AU?Jade Harley, Rose Lalonde, and Kanaya Maryam all work for the Park Service. Something is stalking the park's forest and they have to get to the bottom of the mystery. Can Rose Lalonde navigate fire wardening, weird monsters, this human feeling called friendship, and her own emotional ineptitude? Tune in to find out.(Aradia/Kanaya is there as a significant part of the story, but it's not the central focus, just as a heads-up to all the rare-pair fans).





	1. Chapter 1

Being a fire lookout had seemed ideal to Rose Lalonde. The great outdoors, providing a public service, minimal human contact. Mainly, the minimal human contact bit had been what appealed to her, not so much the other stuff. She didn’t even really like being outdoors, but here she was in Fuck-all Nowhere National Forest full of sunlight and birds and a garbage amount of trees. At least she couldn’t be homesick.

At least she hadn’t seen anyone since hiking in several months ago. Not even her twin who was off somewhere else in the park, miles away doing some sort of resource management project. Sucked to be Dave, having to interact with other people. And tourists. 

And at least she wasn’t in the tall stilt towers, just a mildly tall tower perched on the top of a ridge overlooking most of the rest of the park. Which was lucky; the closest hypothetical human company was Jade, who, posted down in the valley had to hoist herself up a huge ladder every day to get into her tower. It needed to clear the tops of the pine trees, so it was up there. Rose just had to go up some steps.

So really, it wasn’t a bad deal. At most, she had to interact with people over the radio, which was doable and got to be by herself for months. She got days off. She’d collect her last pay check at the end of the season, about two months away, and then fuck off back to her mom’s house, also surrounded by a garbage amount of trees.

Sometimes on her days off, she’d actually drive into town so she could visit the library or a bookstore. Shop around some of her short stories before heading back to the forest. All in all, a good gig.

Rose felt miserable though, a generalized malaise. She wasn’t sick, thank god. She’d rather die of fever alone in her lookout than try and hike out with one. That seemed like too much. She definitely wasn’t homesick, no way to be, unless she suddenly missed weird passive-aggressiveness from an aging lady. Rose just couldn’t figure out why she was so lethargic. Scanning the horizons for smoke was almost too much for her, let alone doing any of her other activities that she’d work at in between looking for smoke. The lookout was a mess, she couldn’t write anything, her knitting sat untouched. She refused to admit to herself that she was on the verge of tears most of the time. 

Rose also refused to entertain the idea that she was lonely. She did, however, entertain the idea of calling Jade Harley, just to check in on her, make sure she hadn’t spotted any fires, y’know, purely for work reasons.

Rose eyed the radio receiver across the room and dragged herself across the small space of the lookout.

She clicked the receiver on.

“Harley, are you there?”

“Helloooo Lalonde! How many sick fires are you calling to warn me about today?”

Rose scanned the horizons again.

“Zero.”

“Nice!” Rose imagined what Jade’s grin must look like. She really needed to invite her to do something at the end of the season. At least hike out together so she could know what the one person she’d been speaking to for the past four months looked like.

“It’s been real mellow, hasn’t it? We’ve only had like, three fires this season!” Jade seemed endlessly perky. Perky about forest fires, perky about the lack of forest fires, perky about bear maulings, probably.

“I don’t know, I heard tell of a fourth fire on the far side of the mountain.”

“Woah-ho-ho, an entire fourth fire? Don’t start telling crazy tall tales, Lalonde.”

“How's it going over on your end?”

“I saw some nice birds! Red-winged blackbirds, maybe? And I have a day off coming up.”

“Any plans?”

“If I were to hike over to see you, would you barricade yourself in your watch post?”

“No, I would just shoot at you from the windows.”

“I can't believe the park service didn't take archer crenellations and siege warfare into account for their fire lookouts.”

“Fools, all of them.”

“But Rose, we’re also in the park service.”

“Like I said, fools.”

Rose made small talk with Jade on and off for a few more hours while continuing to scan the forest. There had been an assuredly low number of fires this season. Maybe good luck, but more likely just a clear warning sign that they were in for an expansive fire soon.

“Well, I'm going to tuck in, it's getting late. Gotta be well rested to see those fires.”

“Night, Harley.”

“Night Lalonde! Radio me more often okay? You're rarer than a first fire this season.”

“Goodnight.” Rose made no promises. She did feel better after talking to Jade, but she'd take that fact to her grave.

Rose tucked in as well. She woke up a scant few hours later, still dark outside, to her little fire-watch cabin shaking. Thinking it was an earthquake she leaped out of bed and got under a door frame. Her fingers hurt with how tightly she was gripping the wood.

Abruptly, the shaking stopped.

Rose got up and went to the window, scanning the horizon. Nothing she needed to report in.  
She retrieved her radio from where it had fallen to the floor. 

“Harley.” Rose was relieved the radio hadn't broken. “Harley, are you there?”

“Lalonde! Are you okay? That was crazy, wasn't it? I got a tiny quake out here. We don't get earthquakes out here much!”

“Do you mean never?” 

The line was quiet for a moment.

“Yeah, come to think of it.”

Rose scanned the horizon again. There was a smudge against the trees to the east. Rose raised her binoculars. Definitely smoke. 

“Harley, there's smoke.”

“Dang! That couldn't have been an explosion right? Was it stronger where you were?”

“It was pretty strong. I'm going to call this one in.”

“Do you think it was campers messing around with, like, propane? That couldn't have caused that right?”

“I don't know, I have no idea, Jade.”

“Maybe it was an asteroid!”

“Jade, give me a second to call this one in.”


	2. Chapter 2

The fire site wasn't as big as it had seemed through the binoculars. It had produced a lot of smoke, too much smoke for how small the burn area was. At the center of the fire zone was an impact crater, but whatever had caused it had disintegrated. At least it looked like it had, from where Rose was standing. The chief fire warden wouldn't let the rest of the volunteers and firefighters closer for fear of radiation. 

Fire extinguished, Rose headed home to wait for whatever orders came next. They'd have to do an impact survey to see if they needed a reforestation plan, so there'd probably be nothing else for her to do except scan for fires for a while until someone else figured all that out. Probably Dave. He'd get to do some soil samples. He loved those.

Rose wanted to go to sleep, but also wanted to drink some coffee. She compromised, when she got back to her cabin, and made some tea. Less caffeine. She sat down at the table, only for Harley to kick up on the radio. She must have been waiting for Rose’s cabin lights to go on. 

“Rose, Rose! What's the situation! They wanted me to stay and monitor in case any sParks sent up a fire somewhere else. How'd it goooo?”

“You know,” Rose yawned and then clicked the walkie back on “I think it was an asteroid.”

“Ha! You owe me five bucks!”

“We didn't bet.”

“Send me the deers.”

Rose took a sip of her tea. She wanted sugar, but then she'd have to get up again.

“So, for realsies, an asteroid?” Jade abandoned the unpromised deer.

“Maybe. There was a crater, but nothing in the crater. Normally there’s something right? Particulates of the asteroid or that glass that happens?”

“Tektites? Yeah, you would think there should be a thing there, but who knows? The survey team is gonna have fun with it, at least.”

Rose nursed her tea, waiting for the walkie to crackle to life again. 

“What if it was an ALIEN LIFEFORM?”

“Big deal, we already have those.” Troll refugees had been slowly acclimating themselves to Earth life for almost a decade now. They weren't super numerous, their Empire was draconian in letting anyone leave, but alien life forms weren't particularly noteworthy. 

“I mean like a different type.”

“The survey team can deal with it then.” Rose was already bored with this line of thinking. She almost stood up to grab the sugar but gave up halfway through sending the thought down to her knees.

“You should call Kanaya!”

“Who and why?”

“Oh, she’s my bug buddy! She's been on Earth for three years and she lives at the edge of the Park and I think she does forestry for us? At least I hope she does, otherwise I probably need to call her in for using her chainsaw all over the place, over.”

“Sorry?”

“I feel like we've been lax in proper radio etiquette, over.”

“Okay, so why should I ask your alien buddy Kanaya?”

“Over.”

Rose sighed, but obliged. “Why should I ask Kanaya, over.”

“Oh, I call her with all my weird sightings, over.”

“‘Weird sightings?’ Over.”

“Yeah, like all my Bigfoot sightings! I always tell Kanaya about that stuff, over.”

Rose sighed, just imagining some poor, bewildered troll out in the wilderness listening to Harley radio in cryptid sightings. What an idiot.

“Bigfoot sightings? I'm not saying ‘over’ again.”

“Booo. But, yeah, I think she's caught on to it being mostly a joke at this point, but she might get a kick out of an alien sighting. Tell her it's Fresno Nightcrawlers.”

“I don't know what those are and we're nowhere near Fresno.”

“They're like living pants, they're really funny, she'll love it.”

“Will she even know what they are?”

“Probably not, but you can explain it!”

“Harley, I barely know what they are!”

“Oh, just go talk to her, it'll be fun!”

Rose finished off the last of her tea. “I'm beginning to suspect you may have been the source of the asteroid, crashing some sort of space material into the Earth all in an effort to get me to make friends.”

“Maybe! Over.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kanaya appears!

Rose put both the possible asteroid and the prospect of “friends” out of her mind. That was a survey team and Jade’s responsibilities, respectively.

She’d hiked out of the Park for the weekend, and took her car into town, thinking she'd visit her mom. She got into town and abruptly changed her mind, wondering what strange possession she had just cast out. Visit her mom. Please. Who did she think she was? She couldn't even think of an example to finish mocking herself with.

Instead, she went to a restaurant by herself, bought a new book, and then regretted the order in which she'd done those things. She could have had half the book read over lunch, instead of making awkward eye contact with a four-year-old for an hour. 

Lamenting her mild human interaction, Rose headed back up to the Park. The main entrance was backed up with cars - a herd of deer was on the side of the road a few feet into the Park. People were hanging out of their cars to look at them and snap pics. The rangers in the ticket booths were clearly exasperated and reminding people not to approach the wildlife.

Rose went in through the ranger entrance and turned down a service road to avoid the tourist backup. She wouldn't have time to hike into her watchtower tonight, so she'd bunk at one of the more accessible ranger stations.

There were still a few hours of daylight, and it was pleasantly warm out, so Rose did the unthinkable. She rolled down her car windows and enjoyed the outdoors. Really enjoyed the fuck out of some trees.

A few miles of nothing but birds and the sound of tires on the road and Rose’s brief encounter with inner peace evaporated. Was that the sound of chopping wood she heard in the distance? This was definitely nowhere near any place where wood chopping could be considered a designated Park activity. Rose slowed the car to a crawl, just to be sure she heard what she heard before she committed to pressing the brake pedal all the way down.

The forest was filled with a definitive “chop chop chop.” Unmistakeable. Rose sighed and pulled the car over. After a quick check in the side mirror to make sure she had her best “I am a Park Ranger and so help me I will ticket you to hell and back” face she stepped off the road and followed the sound.

The tallest lumberjack Rose had ever seen was mid-swing, hefting the hugest axe Rose had ever seen, all while sporting the loveliest pair of asymmetrical horns Rose had ever seen.

Rose waited until the woman was on the backswing before clearing her throat.

“Yes?” The woman turned, and rested the axe head in the earth, leaning against the haft.

“Is this clear cutting authorized?” Rose didn't really care, but the other woman's appearance had shocked her enough she just defaulted to doing her job.

The other woman nodded. “The Park actually ends somewhere over there.” She motioned with her hand. Given that Rose didn't really care, she just accepted the answer. “I'm just preemptively protecting my house in case of fire.” She motioned in the opposite direction.

“You're with the Park Service though, correct?”

“Oh, yes. It is, however, my day off, so I am doing chores.” She hesitantly extended a hand. “I'm Kanaya.”

“I'm Rose. I'm also with the Park Service and also on my day off.”

The woman brightened considerably, but there was still a tenseness in her shoulders and arms. “Are you by chance friends with a Jade Harley? I am not trying to intimate that all humans know one another, or even that all Rangers know one another, but perhaps within the confines f this particular Park the social circles are tightly knit?”

“Yeah, we're both fire wardens. I haven't met her in person but we radio each other, and her tower is the closest one to mine.”

Kanaya relaxed entirely at this. “A shame, to not have met her in person.” 

“Have you met her in person?”

“Sure, she comes down for tea sometimes.”

Rose couldn't tell if the feeling she was experiencing was jealousy or not, so she brushed it off.

“I didn't realize anyone lived so directly close to the Park.”

“It's a government allotment since I work at the Park and am some sort of extra terrestrial. To be honest, I ignored most of the specifics. Erm, would you perhaps be interested in tea?”

“Of course.” Jade had told her to come talk to Kanaya, so it wasn't really like she was dropping her aloof aesthetic, just following a recommendation from a fellow Park employee. 

Kanaya lived a short drive away, although she had apparently hiked up to the clear cut area. She squeezed into Rose’s truck, knees pressed up against the dashboard and shoulders hunched, and gave directions.

Kanaya’s home was spartan. There was a bed, with an ottoman pressed up against it at the base - Rose surmised Kanaya wouldn't quite fit in a human bed. The bed itself was stripped of sheets and blankets, which were instead in a large pile of blankets beside the bed that looked suspiciously like a nest. Part of the pile had avalanched, covering up the book Kanaya must be reading, but not enough that Rose couldn't make out a telltale cover featuring pale arms grasping an apple. The only other piece of furniture - and it was unclear if it was even furniture - was a large jumble that appeared to go through the wall and was covered in a sheet. Through the window Rose could see its continued bulk outside, covered with a tarp. Something straight out of Frankenstein. It wasn't Rose's place to judge - if the Park paid more her she would absolutely have invested in some sort of demon summoning circle.

Kanaya pulled some mismatched saucers out of the cupboard, one a pale green and the other an awkward mustard color, and set water to boil. Apologetically, she offered Rose the one without a crack on the rim.

“I bought these at some sort of second-hand store shortly upon arriving here. I keep meaning to buy a nicer set but I haven't really had a moment to get back into town. Plus, all the staring you humans do is a bit off putting, to be quite honest.”

Rose made sure to blink a few times. “They're not bad. They mostly match your color scheme. And your rustic lifestyle.”

“Rustic,” Kanaya repeated, whether in disagreement or from not knowing the word Rose wasn't sure. 

“What kind of tea would you like?”

“Some sort of grey?”

“I have lady.”

“Sure, lady me.” 

Kanaya nodded and rummaged around in her cabinets for the tea. Jars with weird looking contents, suspiciously congealed and rust colored, were all Rose could scope out around Kanaya’s arms and between the tea boxes. They probably weren't filled with blood. Canned beets maybe, probably.

“Staring?” Kanaya had glanced back at Rose over her shoulder and caught her. Rose nodded, no use lying.

“I wanted to see the full range of your tea collection.” Maybe a little use in lying, still.

“Oh.” Kanaya stepped to the side. “I also have black tea with orange, which is among my top five favorite citrus, but not top three, and some mint that I gathered myself. Not on Park property, of course. And whatever flavour this descriptor is trying to convey.” Kanaya showed her a box of Sleepytime Tea. The containers of dark liquid went unmentioned so Rose made a vague gesture at them.

“Oh! And also this blood.”

“Neat.” Rose took a huge gulp of tea. “Hot.”

“Pardon?”

“The tea is.” Rose could already feel her tongue going numb. “Is that like a normal thing?”

“Sleepytime? I believe so, I purchased it at a rather large chain store.”

“No, I meant the -” Rose gestured again to the containers.

“The blood? Not really. I’m my species’ version of your species’ vampyre.” Rose could actually hear her hit the ‘y.’

“Cool, cool. A vampire alien.” Rose tried to stress the ‘i.’ “So I expect devouring young maidens?” Rose had always suspected she would make friends more easily if people could only tell when she was making a joke.

“No, that's appalling.” Kanaya wrinkled her nose. “I mean yes, I do run around sometimes at night. My species is nocturnal after all, much as I love your planet’s sun, our eyes are really built for low light environs. But I'm not devouring with naked women or anything like that.”

Rose tried to stifle a laugh by gulping down what remained of her tea. Kanaya tilted her head slightly to the left and leveled a highly quizzical look at Rose.

“That is what vampires do, correct? Cavort and also mope around sites designated for the education of human youth?”

“Yes, precisely. Will I catch you moping around the gymnasium of the local high school on the eve of the homecoming dance?”

“I am not particularly fond of organized sports.”

“Shame. You may be mixing up the first monster marker with Bacchae, however, or perhaps the Devil himself. Much more party-oriented monsters. Vampires tend to cavort with naked women indoors, not really out of them.”

“The Devil? I don’t believe I know enough about that monster to mix it up with a different one.”

“You know, I saw Goody Maryam with the Devil?”

“I do believe I hate this conversation.”

Rose stifled a laugh. “All right, we can switch topics.”

“It would be Porrim Maryam you saw anyways, given that she is more prone to partying, as the last point on this baffling line of conversation.”

“Well, there's the topic switch. Who is Porrim Maryam, is she your sister? Your mom?”

Kanaya squinted, opened her mouth, clicked it shut, and bared her teeth for a brief second as she worked through the question and her answer. “Not exactly. My mom was a moth. And my species are essentially giant insects - siblings are not really a thing for us? She is my genetic duplicate, wherein her genetic makeup is incredibly similar to mine, which is a thing that happens for my species, as opposed to the not-thing of siblings.”

“Is this like those parthenogenetic lizards?”

“Rose, we have just met so I hope this does not ruin our burgeoning friendship but Do You Have Eyes? I was not aware one could be a fire warden and not have eyes. I am clearly some sort of giant bug and not a lizard.”

“My mistake. Of course you are some sort of giant bug. Is she the older genetic duplicate or are you?” Rose was fishing for a point of similarity between her and Kanaya. Dave was constantly bringing up being the older twin, which was foolish, considering Rose was the evil twin, the proverbial Bad Seed. Amazing he was still alive to talk about the .37 second difference.

“She is the older one. I have not seen her in years.” Kanaya pulled the spoon from her tea saucer and stuck it in her mouth. It clinked as she chewed at it several times before removing it. “The Empire is not particularly party-friendly, so Porrim stole a ship, liberated its Helmsman and bailed. Supposedly they evaded capture and destruction, but she has not contacted me to corroborate the rumors.” Kanaya repeated the chewing motion with the spoon. It clinked off the porcelain as she put it back in, the vessel empty of liquid.

“If she had waited a few years, she could have applied to Earth for citizenship. With me.”

“I heard being accused of being a secret spy for an alien invasion was quite the party scene.” Earth had accepted its new alien citizens with varying levels of kindness. Some countries bought into the refuge stories, others believed the “sharing of knowledge” story, others set up black sites with underground containment facilities. Some mixed and matched.

“I'm sure infiltration and invasion was actually the original plan. But a combination of internal turmoil and the Empire spreading itself too thin on multiple invasion points made it so the recent attempts by a new Heiress to commit regicide, while unsuccessful, weakened the Empire enough that our enemies were able to themselves commit many successful attacks against the Empire, rendering anyone deployed to Earth essentially both stranded and liberated. Absolutely no secret invasion. More tea?”

Kanaya’s words were incredibly hurried. Rose wondered if she could have made the hike back to her tower after all. This was too much for a simple cup of lady grey to get her through. Maybe a second cup would do it. And Kanaya was nice enough to look at. “Yes, thank you, more tea would be nice.”

They sipped their tea in a silence that Rose couldn’t quite navigate. It wasn't awkward, exactly.

“Do you like it, though?” Rose blurred out, voice to loud. 

“Like what?”

“Earth. The U.S. of A. The Park service.”

Kanaya ‘hmm’d,’ thinking. “I suppose, overall, yes. The alternatives would have been a fugitive's life or culled for vampirism. It would have been harder to hide in the Fleet.”

“Well, you're doing a good job of hiding it on Earth.”

“You asked.” Kanaya took another sip of tea, fangs clinking lightly against the porcelain. “I like the way the trees are here. You have a lot of very excellent moths as well.”

“I'm glad.” Rose genuinely was. Kanaya was not only nice to look at, but also overall pleasant, not a trait she would assign to most people. 

“Do you like it?” Rose should have anticipated Kanaya asking a question in response, but was completely caught off guard. Did she like it? She scrambled for an answer.

“Yeah. Yeah, it’s good. I like the solitude. And I get to feel important. The whole Park would definitely burn down without my diligent efforts.”

Kanaya smiled. “I suppose thanks are in order for your ‘diligent efforts.’”

“I’d like a medal.”

“I think I have some spare bottle caps you can have, to sate your desire for shiny, meaningless trinkets.”

They finished their tea. The promised bottle caps never appeared. Rose wanted to ask for another cup to draw things out longer, but had run out of things to say. Comfortable silence could only last so long. 

She stood up, and Kanaya followed, showing her to the door.

“Well, I must admit, I do appreciate your surprise visit.”

“And I must admit that I appreciate your surprise hospitality, Miss Maryam.”

Kanaya beamed, her smile full of fangs. “I have had very limited interactions with humans. Mostly Jade Harley is my only point of contact.” Kanaya's eyes darted briefly to the sheet-covered pile in the corner before she corrected herself. “Human contact. But this has been very pleasant, and I think we both did well with our interactions.”

Rose stifled a laugh, biting down on her inner cheek. “Yes, I am also proud of how expertly we navigated the tangles of verbal interaction.” She thought briefly about relaying this piece of scintillating conversation back to Jade, before realizing Jade would get on her for what was, I in fact, on average very poor social navigation skills.

“Oh, lovely. Are you by chance the woman in the fire tower near hers? She mentions you not infrequently.”

“I was unaware what a celebrity I was.”

“Yes, I loved the interview you gave in ‘Park Ranger Celebrity Monthly.’ Do tell Jade hello for me.”

“Of course.” Rose would definitely do that, as soon as she figured out how to do so without intimating that she had followed Jade’s advice after all.

She got back into her truck and pulled back onto the service road. As she drove away, she something dash across the road in her rearview mirror. Just a flash - she didn't pay it much mind. Probably one of the deer finally making a break from the tourists. Probably.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not saying the Helmsman hanging out with Porrim is Damara, but it's Damara.


	4. Chapter 4

Rose had completely forgotten to mention the possible asteroid to Kanaya. She purposefully forgot to mention the whole interaction to Jade. Weeks passed, and she was back to a day off. 

Hiking to see Jade was an option, but that would involve hiking. Easier to drive to see Kanaya. Jade wouldn't be too put out, she hoped. She was taking her advice, after all, and Rose would make sure to trek out to see her on her next day off. And she’d already agreed to do something in town with Jade once the season was over. Rose had to spread her friendly interactions around, it would be absurd to see Jade multiple times in a row.

Rose parked out front of Kanaya’s cabin, past the edge of the Park. No real news had been relayed back about what we had crashed in the Park. Vague explanations of “space debris” from the Park higher ups and in all the newspapers. Rose didn't feel the need to follow up with Kanaya, but it might be a point of conversation.

She knocked on the door. From around the back of the little cabin the sounds of someone rapidly running around to cover something up.

Kanaya came barreling out the door, and slammed into the doorframe in a nonchalant lean. Her hair was slightly out of place.

“Rose! Hello!”

“Surprised to see me?” Rose remembered the thing covered by sheets she had seen last time, and suddenly desperately wanted to know. If she didn't like Kanaya so much, she would probably sneak back later to snoop. She might still do that.

“Jade was trying to set up a bet on whether you would visit me again.”

“Did she now?”

“I did not take her up on it.”

“I appreciate that, Kanaya.”

“Only because I felt the odds were stacked too much against you, as I do not know you very well.”

“Lucky for you I came down to amend that last part. Did I catch you at a bad time?”

The pause before Kanaya answered was long and mildly suspicious. “No.” 

“Do you mind if I come in? Or would you rather visit out here?”

Another long pause as Kanaya pondered the question. “No,” she said slowly and finally, and opened the door all the way and invited Rose in.

The sheet was out of place, and as Kanaya started fussing over tea, Rose dared a look.

She could see incomprehensible metal and wires, welded onto something that looked very much like her lookout’s radio.

“Calling someone?” Rose asked with what she hoped was an air of nonchalance.

“What? No, of course not. Offworld transmissions are expressly forbidden. I would never.”

The teakettle whistled and Kanaya lunged for it. She poured the water haphazardly, half of it making it into the cup while the rest of it flowed out onto the counter.

“And I would never rat someone out over a hypothetical phone call home.” 

Kanaya brought the half-filled cup over to Rose. Her pupils were dilated in panic, narrow angular pin pricks like a cat. 

“Well I should hope not, should any such hypothetical situation arise.”

Whatever had fallen in the Park was suddenly unimportant. Rose tried to think who Kanaya might be hypothetically calling on her hypothetical radio tower. She had said she had completely lost contact with Porrim, so she was out.

“A quick call to some sort of moth-like maternal figure?”

“Mother? Oh no, Rose, not to her.” Kanaya sighed, a breaking sound like she might cry. “Rose, my mother, she was very beautiful and so kind. She would sing me to sleep in the daytime when I woke and was restless, and when even that didn't work, she would follow me, squinting, into the light to make sure I was safe.”

Kanaya blinked rapidly several times. Her pupils had returned to a normal size, but here was a telltale dampness at their edges. Rose gripped her cup handle so tightly. She knew she had without a doubt, Fucked Up.

“My mother died, many years ago. I could not call her, although I would dearly like to.”

Kanaya sniffed. Rose stayed quiet, now unwilling to seek clarification on who Kanaya had actually called. They both sipped their tea.

“Did you hear - “ Rose tried to start up a new conversational track, and faltered.

“Did I hear what?” Kanaya, however, jumped on the opportunity.

“Did you know about the asteroid, or whatever, that hit up in the west of the Park?”

“Jade mentioned something. She said believed it was an earthquake initially.”

“Yeah, we radioed about it, and then she badgered me to come tell you about it.”

“Did she?” Kanaya’s gaze briefly slipped back to the radio tower.

“All in an effort to make friends,” Rose amended hastily. “I believe she wants me to get out more.”

Kanaya snorted. “Out more than you already are in the middle of the Park?”

“Jade is laboring under the assumption that it would be healthy for me to engage in the practice known as ‘making friends.’”

“Foolish.” Kanaya finished her tea all at once, a huge gulp like she wanted to avoid talking, which she then did anyway. “Hypothetically,” a slight twitch of her index finger back to the radio tower. “I have not heard anything about anything entering Earth’s space that should not have.”

“Do you mean,” Rose didn't mean to cycle back to the radio set-up, but was mortified as she heard herself go ahead anyways, “that you have not heard anything or no one has told you anything?”

“Both.” Kanaya lips were pulled down in a deep frown. She sighed and shifted in her chair, leaning back as far as she could. She folded her arms across her chest. Another sigh.

“Sometimes I miss them - my mother, and well, her -” another small motion to the radio setup. Her voice had dropped low, revealing a secret.

“A lady friend?” Shockingly, Rose felt a shock of jealousy at the possibility of an unconfirmed and hypothetical girlfriend.

“Sometimes, Rose, your species does this awful thing where you use words to deliberately obfuscate what you mean and to set up a double meaning.”

Rose backed off. “That seems like a normal thing to do when on an alien planet. To be homesick.”

Kanaya huffed and sniffled, and brought a hand up to her face, touching her cheek, not quite rubbing at her eyes.

“So, nothing about an asteroid or whatever?”

“No, not to my knowledge. I perhaps would like you to leave.”

“Of course.” Rose finished her last mouthful of tea, and left.

Rose didn't want to admit it to herself, but she felt guilty. Like cottonmouth but in her whole body. She's upset Kanaya. She hadn't talked to her mother basically since the fire season had started. Since the last off-season in fact. Maybe she’d call. She’d have to drive herself down to the visitors center for that, though. No reception where she was, unless she wanted to call in a fire to her mom on the radio.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late update - the chapter schedule might be kind of wonky the next few weeks, but I'm aiming for a chapter every weekend.

Rose was still shaken up over her last conversation with Kanaya. She hadn't spoken to her own mother in months. Really, as soon as the fire season started Rose just dropped off the face of the Earth to everyone but Jade and and the handful of tourists who would see her blurrily moving through the woods like some sort of cryptid. She was the Bigfoot all along. It was her.

Rose decided she should offer her mother a peace offering. The most noncommittal peace offering she could think of, obviously, but some sort of gesture.

She settled on novelty Park shirts and made her way down to the visitors center and it's gift shop.

It was a holiday weekend, and there were throngs of people. The visitor center staff had set up maps with trail updates - it looked like a number of the backcountry trails were temporarily closed because of some sort of vague “wildlife encounters.” None of the rangers seemed sure what that meant, so Rose disregarded it, happy at least that it might mean fewer people in the backcountry near her post. She made a beeline for the shirts, hoping to get in and out as soon as possible and return to her elusive cryptid lifestyle.

Of course she hit a snag. Rose was torn between getting the least gaudy national Park service shirt, the most boring drab thing in existence, the perfect emblem of days spent staring out at nothing just in case there was smoke, or the pink bedazzled one. Never before had a forest been so glittery. She was walking around the center, clutching the two shirts, contemplating deeply, when she caught sight of a familiar pair of horns towering above the crowd.

Kanaya was garnering quite a few stares, but appeared to be unaware of them. She was engrossed in reading the informative placards in the museum portion of the center. She was one of four people actually reading them, two others being an elderly French couple doing their best to get through the English, and the fourth a young, very excitable child proudly sporting a Junior Ranger badge. 

“Kanaya!” Rose called to her, and abandoned her shirt quest.

Kanaya turned, and her eyes were wide and alarmed. She stayed rooted in place by the biology exhibit. Rose hurried over to stand next to her, pretending to look at the exhibit as she glanced around the center for what might be wrong.

Kanaya leaned in slightly and Rose all but swooned right next to the exhibit about different kinds of animal scat as the other woman loomed over her. 

“Rose,” Kanaya started, her voice lower and more gravely then normal with conspiracy. “Rose, I suspect that child may be fraudulently impersonating a Park official.” 

“Kanaya, what?”

Kanaya shot a glance at the child with the Junior Ranger badge. “On our planet it would not have been out of place for a child to carry weaponry and wrangle fearsome and wild beasts but I am fairly certain human children do not. Therefore there is no way that child could actually be a Park employee.”

“Oh.”

Kanaya nodded, 100% dead serious.

“Kanaya, it's fake.” Possibly not the correct choice of words, Rose would never mean to besmirch the hallowed title of Junior Ranger. But she was too thrown off by this conversation to think of good words. Or to think at all. So basically just like her previous conversations with Kanaya.

Kanaya shook her head and reached out to grasp Rose’s shoulders. Rose wondered how much self control she must be exhibiting for her to barely feel the pinprick of her claws on her skin.

“Rose, that is exactly what I have just said. They're a fraud.”

The seriousness of the conversation, and perhaps the fact that they were touching startled a guffaw out of Rose. Which was fine, people had already been staring anyways.

Kanaya anxiously looked around, noticing the stares for the first time.

“Rose, perhaps it would be best not to draw attention to the situation.”

Rose bit her inner lip, trying to stifle a smile. “I don't think the ‘situation’ warrants too much panic, Kanaya.” Rose grasped the hand Kanaya had rested on her shoulder, and lead her to the information counter. She fished around and came up with a Junior Ranger activity book, thrusting the packet into Kanaya’s hands. 

“It's like a game, so kids can feel connected to the Park and nature and junk.” 

Kanaya rifled through the pages. Her lower lip had gotten caught on her left fang, leaving her with a tiny mock snarl.

“So is this another lie, much like that winged being who steals your teeth, that humans tell their young?”

Rose briefly thought about filling out a Junior Ranger book to send back to her mother. She decided against it.

“No, it's not really a lie. See, look here.” Rose took the booklet from Kanaya's hands to flip to the right page. “They have to take this little oath to pick up trash and stay on trails and all that. Some of them probably do it. Look how excited that kid is, probably only twelve people total have ever bothered to read the exhibits.”

Kanaya looked sceptical. “So they help in a small way? And this makes them feel big, I suppose?”

“Sure, I guess that's part of the intent.”

Kanaya took the booklet back and flipped through it again, stopping on a word jumble. Her lips lifted from where they’d snagged on her fangs into a smile. “How very endearing.” She glanced back at the child, still smiling. The kid was now pointing at a stuffed turkey in the Park animal exhibit, and rattling off facts to their parents. “What are these displays anyways? Hunting trophies?”

“No, not really.” Rose glanced at the taxidermied animals. Maybe a little bit. “They’re more to show what the wildlife is in the Park, and give little animal factoids. Would they be hunting trophies in bug-planet Park visitor centers?”

Kanaya stared at Rose for a moment, like she was an alien, which, of course, she was . “Ah.” Realization dawned. “You mean Alternia? Alternia doesn’t have Parks. They would probably be filled with nothing but hunting trophies, however.” Kanaya cast a glance back at the turkey. “More fearsome trophies than these though.”

“Turkeys are unspeakable eldritch beasts.” Rose insisted, a memory of a movie she had loved as a child bursting into her mind without warning or invite. A talking dog being chased by a monstrous turkey. “Like in Homeward Bound, you know?”

“I do not know what that is.”

“It was a movie I loved when I was little. Maybe at the end of the season you can come down to my mom’s house and we can watch it. Although, maybe my mom had the VHS bronzed, who knows.”

“I do not know what that means.”

“Nevermind. What are you doing down here today?” Rose moved the conversation away from her earnest memories and into more banal territory.

“Oh, I'd never been! Even my interview was conducted off site. I suppose they were worried I was an alien invader? Silly, because it's not even like I'm the first to work on Earth, and we're past any sort of infiltration point, in any case.”

“Yeah.” Rose didn't know how to react to that, they had already talked about the Empire’s failed infiltration plan, and Kanaya seemed incapable of lying either way. The idea of Kanaya as part of any sort of invasion force tickled Rose. ‘Hello, I am a part of a secret but hostile alien invasion. No, no, don't get up, it’s fine.’

Kanaya looked back to the kid, who had moved on to pouting at a taxidermied porcupine. “I thought it would be good to know some things about the place that I am from now.”

“The place you're from?” 

“Yes, if I go somewhere else and they ask where I was previously I'd say the Park Service.”

“Not an alien planet a billion light years away?”

“Mm, I'm not sure, but I don't think it's a billion. Also, yes, as I would prefer not to recall most things from there. Except for a few friends, but not what happened to them, and the way some of the plants looked. And my mother, of course.” Kanaya made a short series of clicking sounds, her eyes unfocusing for a few seconds. She came back to the present. 

“Why are you here, Rose? Jade has frequently described you as ‘standoffish.’ This seems like quite an inhospitable environment for you.”

“Oh, getting some stuff for my mom. Reminding myself why I'm standoffish.”

Kanaya made an excited churring sound, and the previously staring tourists who'd moved on to staring at other things, swung their collective gaze straight back to Kanaya.

“What kind of stuff? Gifts? Is your mother nearby? What kind of creature is she, wait, no, humans are all raised by other humans, correct? Is that weird, it seems weird, how do you know what not to be?”

Rose could feel her throat start to tighten, anxiety flaring out it's horrible tentacles across her whole nervous system.

“Just… Shirts.” She skated over the rest of Kanaya's questions in a truly gold-medal worthy Olympic performance. “Which one do you think is better?” Kanaya took the crumpled shirts from her, running her fingers over the fabric. When she unrolled them, her mouth settled into a straight line, lips not even catching on her fangs, so great was her displeasure.

“Rose, as I have already misunderstood human social norms and committed a gaffe once today in your presence, please take this with a pinch of minerals. These are abhorrent.” She held the shirts with the tips of her fingers, like the shirts would burn her if exposed to too much skin. “This one is particularly bad.” She gave the pink bedazzled one a shake. 

“Well, that's perfect then.” Rose reached out and relieved Kanaya of her incredible burden. “I'll just get both, actually. Do you want anything?”

“Pardon?”

“Do you want some kitschy Park nonsense?”

“No.” The firmest but gentlest no.

“I’m buying you this bird.” Rose grabbed a stuffed toy robin from an overflowing basket of birds. It warbled when she squeezed it.

“Please do not.”

“You love it.”

“I do not.”

“A hummingbird then. What do those even sound like?”

“I do not know, but I successfully caught and ate one once.”

“I’m very proud of you.”

“Thanks.”

“What about a postcard?”

“I live here.”

“You send it to a friend who doesn’t live here.”

Kanaya did not immediately retort. She took a moment to think.

“You also live here.”

Rose, despite herself, was touched, and worried that Kanaya might see her cheeks heating up, and that she’d therefore lose the conversation. But she didn’t fumble. “Someone else.”

“Jade lives here too.”

“Do you know anyone who isn’t in the Park Service?” Rose suddenly felt badly. She had been trying to tease her, not make her homesick. A weird feeling, remorse.

“No. Not on earth. And I don’t suppose your postal service is interstellar.”

“They do snow, and rain, and gloom of night, but I don’t think asteroid belts.”

Kanaya picked up a postcard from its revolving rack, flipped it over in her fingers, and then returned it.

“Shame.” She picked up another one, some rock formation at sunrise. “I have a friend who just absolutely loves mineral aggregates.”

“Oh, yeah?” Rose bit back a laugh at Kanaya’s word choice.

“Fucking loves them.” Kanaya clenched a fist to really get it across, how much her friend fucking loved rocks. “She’s definitely out of delivery range, however, for the U S P S.” Kanaya hit each individual letter like a drag racer going over a sudden speed bump. “It is very distressing, I think she’d love Earth. And all its igneous rocks.” She made a low rumbling sound in the back of the throat. Rose couldn’t quite interpret the exact meanings, but there was an obvious sadness. Some tourists turned to stare again. Rose glared.

“Well,” Kanaya said, the word swelling up from the rumbling. “I believe I have seen everything here, and will be going. Good luck with your garish gifts. I hope your mother likes them.”

“Thanks, Kanaya.” Rose bit back a nasty remark at her mother’s expense, shocking herself. Kanaya didn’t deserve that, she already seemed rather bummed out. She resolved to knit Kanaya something, and to maybe picket the post office for its shoddy and quite stone-age delivery practices.

A nice scarf maybe. She’d have to find the most garish colors imaginable, though.


	6. Chapter 6

Rose settled on something other than a gaudy yarn monstrosity as a gift for Kanaya. There were tons of old magazines in the corners of the tower, left there by previous fire wardens. Rose flipped through them, looking for the most astounding Earth vistas, as well as its kitschiest fonts. 

She wasn’t entirely sure what constituted a font being kitschy, but she knew it when she saw it. She’d picked up one of the visitor center’s postcards, featuring an impressive shot of some Bighorn sheep walking through the snow with the mountains in the background, and painstakingly arranged her cutout letters across the bottom left of the card. ‘Greetings from Earth.’

Before leaving she scanned the horizon. No fires, no alien mothercraft landing in the mountains. So it was safe to run on a tiny personal errand to win a tall gray bug lady’s affections. By making her a postcard to maybe send to her maybe girlfriend on fucking Mars once the post office got it’s act together. Totally a good use of a fire warden’s time.

She took the 4-wheeler and drove down the canyon to Kanaya’s cabin. The windows were dark, and Kanaya appeared to be away. Rose sat on the porch and waited, slowly spiraling into ridiculous critique of her postcard. Shoddy craftsmanship, all around. She could have cut around those letters a little straighter and was that glue she saw peeking out from under the curl of the second ‘g?’ Unacceptable. She got a nail under the edge of the offending patch of dried glue. A motor sounded in the distance, getting louder, coming closer. Kanaya emerged from the trees, straddling a 4-wheeler. Rose removed her fingernail from the glue. How best to hide the postcard and her shoddy craftsmanship and her shoddy feelings? She considered eating the postcard. ‘Why yes, Kanaya, souvenir paper squares are a treat on Earth, it's how we absorb experiences and retain memories through a complex system of ingesting a replica of the thing we already saw. Perfectly normally that I just shoved that all in my mouth at once.’

Kanaya dismounted the 4-wheeler and took off her helmet. Rose wasn't sure how it worked around her horns, but regardless, proper head safety had never looked so good. Kanaya flashed her a huge, fanged smile. Rose did not eat the postcard.

“Hello, Rose. What a pleasant surprise.” Kanaya paused. “What a good job I just did there, at making human small-talk.”

“Yes, that was a very strong opener.” Rose held out the postcard, ready to get this emotional openness for you. “I brought you some mail.”

“I was under the impression that was someone else’s job.” She reached out to take the proffered piece of paper.

“Yes, well, I’m expanding my resume.”

“How clever!” Kanaya inspected the gaudy collage. “You are aware, however, that I’ve been on Earth several years now, and it is perhaps too late for first greetings?”

“Well, we’ve only spoken a handful of times.”

“True. It is a nice greeting, and better than the one I initially received on Earth.”

“No nice postcards?”

“No, your military was rather panicked. Which again, even if I was part of an invasion force, which I am not, I would not do my job well, rather purposefully. I am very fond of the flora on this planet. And some of the people I have met.” Kanaya gave Rose a pointed look.

Rose countered with a single lifted eyebrow. “Am I, pray tell, one of these people you carry a fondness for?”

Kanaya took a sharp, exasperated breath. “Rose, honestly, I shot you a pointed look and everything.”

Rose thought very hard about getting up on her toes and kissing Kanaya. She didn't. Kanaya would have to lean down to meet her even if she was on her toes on a step-stool, and Rose hadn't seen any sort of height enhancing tool nearby.

Kanaya’s pupils had dilated, and Rose realized her horrible body had betrayed her even as she’d decided not to kiss her. She’d leaned in close to Kanaya, too close for this to just be friendly.

“Yes, well, those were the words that came out of my mouth,” Kanaya said hurriedly.

“They sure were. I’m sure more words will come out in my direction again in the future. Anyways, goodbye.” Rose clambered back on her 4-wheeler and left, a stone-faced monument to awkward interactions.


	7. Chapter 7

Rose went to visit Kanaya again her next free day, once again blowing off Jade. As she barreled across the Park in her truck towards Kanaya’s cabin, she promised herself she would hang out with Jade at least twice at the end of the season, for real and in person to make up for it,   
When Rose turned off the truck, she could hear Kanaya talking quietly in the cabin, as well as a second woman’s voice, coming in crackly and statically over a radio. 

“It's nice to hear from you. I was worried that solar flare had made connection impossible forever.”

A crackle, maybe a laugh, and some garbled words. Rose crept closer.

“I found some rocks I thought you’d like. I set them aside, just in case - if - you know- or rather-” Kanaya trailed off awkwardly, and Rose stood on the porch awkwardly. Surely Kanaya had heard the truck, surely she knew Rose was standing on her porch and had forgotten how to use her legs and her brain all of a sudden and could hear all of what seemed to be an intimate conversation based on all the pauses and sighing? 

But Kanaya did not notice that Rose was standing ineffectual and awkward on her porch. Probably distracted by what Rose could now clearly identify as another woman’s laughter, rich and deep. “That’s okay, Kanaya! Maybe you can show me sometime, you never know.”

“Aradia, we do know, it's not worth it to pretend like -”

“What do they look like?” The other woman cut Kanaya off, leaving Rose wondering what she didn’t want to pretend about.

“What?”

“What do the rocks look like?”

“Oh, they’re like a rock with smaller rocks instead.” 

The other woman laughed again.

“I threw one on the ground and it broke open and there were better, smaller rocks inside.”

“A geode?”

“Probably?”

“What color are geodes on Earth?”

“Well, the outside is like a dull and unremarkable grayish color, although I'm sure you would be very interested in the composition that gives it said color, and would, in fact, find its pigment delightful. And then the insides are clear crystals and I feel like you would enjoy looking at them.”

“For sure! I’d love to look at them sometime, which is a distinct possibility because we definitely don’t know for sure that-”

“Aradia, please, let's not continue to lie to ourselves -”

“It’s not really lying so much as hoping, and I would like to point out that one of us is in an easier position re: piloting, and really shouldn’t be disallowing the other that small bit of hope,”

Both their voices had raised and they’d reached a breaking point in the argument.

The other woman picked up the conversational fragments and tried to start over, her voice quiet. “Why were you throwing rocks at the ground? You didn’t know there were better, smaller rocks inside them before you did that, did you?”

In the silence before Kanaya answered, Rose managed to take a step back towards her truck. She’d eavesdropped a lot already; that was enough. She had to get out before Kanaya inadvertently said something that killed her.

“I was angry.”

“Angry?”

“I just get so furious sometimes, and it's so aimless, and then I feel so helpless.” And that was it, Rose was dead. Kanaya was suffering from the same thing Rose refused to acknowledge in herself.

“So you throw rocks at the ground?”

“Yeah.”

“Don't you swing a big fucking axe at big fucking trees all day?”

“Yeah.”

“And that doesn't do enough for you?”

“No. But, you’re right, I shouldn’t complain, I have things easier.”

“Kanaya, don’t contort my words like that. You know that’s not what I meant. Kanaya, I just wish that-”

Whatever the woman said next was eaten up by static distortion. Rose hurried to make her legs take more steps. She was off the porch now. All she needed to do was get in the driver’s seat and grab the steering wheel. Halfway there, one hand on the wheel, and her dumb brain went catatonic again. 

“I can not hear what you are saying anymore. And that is what makes me furious. You are so far away and I do not think I will ever see you again and I go so many days in the quiet without your voice before your handlers happen to pilot you to coordinates that I can bounce a radio signal too. You must be angry too and I do not understand why we are always pretending otherwise.”

The static swelled, and Rose could hear Kanaya exclaim a string of what she could only assume were alien swears. 

Kanaya came banging out the front door, footsteps heavy, and Rose thought from the look on her face that they might have been prayers instead.

Kanaya blinked, rapidly, multiple times, like a near-drowned person surfacing and trying to clear the water from their eyes. A bat emerging from a cave. A very, very sad woman emerging to find a weird alien perched haphazardly across a land vehicle, clearly having eavesdropped on her very, very sad conversation.  
“Ah, you heard that didn’t you?”

“Nope!”

“That was my moirail.” 

Rose thought about revving the engine, and gunning it out of there, but Kanaya just kept talking.

“Aradia is a helmsman, which is a high honor for a maroon blood.” The way Kanaya’s lips curled back, revealing her black gums, Rose knew it was anything but an honor. Her continually dumb brain continued to be dumb and she heard the words spill out from her mouth even as she knew she didn't need clarification. 

“What is a helmsman?”

A real snarl escaped Kanaya’s throat and her eyes rolled as she tried to think of an explanation. 

“Have you ever been on a bus, Rose?”

“Yeah, I've been on buses before.” Thankfully, Rose’s mouth had not betrayed her, and her lips clamped shut over the treacherous half-formed words ‘of course.’ Kanaya’s eyes narrowed, and Rose wondered if she could taste aborted words.

“I have only been on a bus once. To get up here from where I was.” Kanaya paused, twisted her neck slightly until her carapace plates realigned with a ‘pop.’ She was huffing, exhaling heavy and hot. Rose consciously focused on her own breathing - without thinking she’d started matching Kanaya’s. She took long, steady breaths. Kanaya continued.

“A helmsman is kind of like a bus driver.” Kanaya said the words slowly, and Rose could see her black tongue twisting around the foreign words as she opened her mouth too wide for English sounds. Kanaya paused again and picked at the flaking edge of one of her hand plates. Rose wondered if she was sick or molting, and then hoped the conversation would not end with Kanaya just ripping off her own exoskeleton. 

“A helmsman is like a bus driver. But if, in order to drive the bus, they had their legs chopped off first. If there was no anesthetic. If, instead of an engine made of metal it was their bodies that moved the vehicle, but also, the owners had not entirely given up on the idea of metal parts and just fused that to the driver. It is a terrible, terrible thing.”

“I’m sorry.” Rose didn’t know what to say, out of her depth emotionally and drowning.

Kanaya slumped back against the wall of her cabin.

“I miss her very much.”

“I’m sorry.” Rose said a normal thing. And then her horrible brain kicked into horrible overdrive and made her ask a horrible question. “What, exactly is a moirail?”

“Exactly? Well it's someone you pity. It's not this weird soft emotion humans throw themselves into.” Kanaya stated this matter of factly. Her favorite tea was lady grey. She worked in the forestry department. Humans had stupid emotions and she felt only pity for a woman halfway across the galaxy that she built a ramshackle radio tower to call. Obviously. 

“But I suppose it is not an exact thing with Aradia and me. It never really was, but now, even more so.” Kanaya made a soft clicking noise as she pondered. Rose immediately felt a hot jealousy rise up in her stomach.

“I do certainly pity her sometimes. She is, after all, without the use of her legs.” The clicking continued, just a slight movement of the jaw all it took for such a pathetic sound.

“But more often than not I admire her. Very much. She is so strong, although I wish she didn't have to be.” Kanaya’s clicking had reached a crescendo, like so many cicadas gasping for true summer air.

“I would like to give her soft things.” The clicking stopped, the forest suddenly so quiet in its absence. Rose felt as if she should lean forward to listen to a secret, even though Kanaya was still speaking in her normal tone.

“Er, maybe what I mean by that is I would like to give her a soft place to rest, so she could be weak for once, and safe.” Kanaya was blushing up to her ears as she rubbed at the back of her neck. “It is all very confusing, even for me. Does that make sense to you, Rose? Don’t answer that, I do not want to continue this topic any longer. Here is a question for you, so that you can say words and I can stop. Do you have anyone you would like to make a soft space for?”

“No, not really.” At most, she wanted to get coffee with Jade, but that seemed more like she just wanted a face to put with the name. Not necessarily that she wanted to kiss that face.

“Ah.” Kanaya’s last exhalation hung awkward in the air between them.

“Well,” Kanaya started, at last, rubbing the back of her neck.

“I think I should head back.” Rose started as soon as Kanaya began to speak.

“Yes.” Kanaya replied.

Mercifully, Rose’s brain let her remember how to operate her vehicle this time.


	8. Chapter 8

“Lalonde!” Jade’s voice rang out over the radio.

“Copy.” Rose responded.

“Oh, nice! No time for friendly banter today though, we’ve got a fire on our hands!”

“Oh, boy. Where at?”

“A little north of you, it looks like.”

Rose peered through her binoculars. A tiny wisp of smoke rose above the trees. 

“Looks like a campfire. Call it in Jade, I’m going to hike out there and chew out some campers. Probably just kick some dirt over it.”

“Roger!”

\---

It was indeed a campfire. A few miles from her firewatch, definitely not on camping ground. Nothing had ignited nearby, all that remained was a few embers and some last plumes of smoke. Rose sighed. Wondered if it was some drunk idiots, or lost idiots, or what kind of exact idiot was responsible. Then the glint of metal in the trees caught her eye. 

She pulled out her flashlight to look through the dim underbrush, grateful for its heft. She wasn't spooked, or anything.

Someone had been trying to hide something. A heap of metal, covered over with branches and leaves, but the chrome of it still peaked out. Rose crept closer and heard a muffled voice.

“Hello?” Rose called out. “I'm with the Park Service. Do you need help?” She hoped there hadn't been a plane crash, that she wasn't looking at a fuselage that had just fallen out of the sky.

Static answered her and then a crackling voice. “Hello? --- Hello! Is someone there?”

“Yes I'm here? Are you alright?” Rose swept the area with the beam from her flashlight. No wreckage, no bodies. Just the thing hidden under the leaves. She took a deep breath and swept the branches aside.

Beneath the branches there was what looked like the remains of a radio tower.

“I’d say --- alright! Are you a friend of Kanaya's?”

Kanaya's radio tower.

“Yeah my name’s Rose. Is this Aradia?”

“Yup! Human Rose? She's told me about you, it's nice to ---- with you.”

“Does she know many non-human Roses?” Why was part of the radio tower out here? 

“No I suppose not. I believe she is a --- fan of the plant though.”

“Nice.”

“That is a kind of plant, right? I'm remembering that correctly? Sometimes it's hard for my head to keep memory-thoughts. What with all the --- wiring up there, y’know?”

Rose did not know at all.

“Were you talking to someone else? Before me?”

“Oh I assumed that was you --- fiddle with the settings! It was super garbled and --- sounding.”

“No, that wasn't me.”

Static in the other end.

“Are you still there? Did you hear me?”

“Yeah, just had to do some --- adjustments real fast. You said it wasn't you?”

“Yeah I'm talking to you through half the tower that someone snapped off and dragged into the woods.”

More static and then silence. The woods were quiet too. Rose swept her flashlight beam around again. Nothing that she could see. But that didn't mean anything. However had stolen the radio tower could have hidden at her approach. Be watching her right now.

Aradias voice roared through the silence.

“I'm sorry --- moving out of range--- return to Kan---” the rest of the message totally broke up into static.

The sound and the forests silence was getting to Rose. She checked over her shoulder and saw no one, but the hairs on the back of her neck were standing up. She’d probably just freaked herself out. Hastily she checked the coordinates of her location and then backtracked to the small fire.

She kicked dirt onto it, and toed around in the remains to make sure there were no more live embers. When she looked away from the fire’s remains there were no figures in the woods watching her. Just a regular forest setting. She still hiked out faster than was necessary.

It was too late to hike out to Kanaya's. She'd just have to shoot for her own cabin and head down in the morning. 

Something cracked in the woods behind her. Not quite footsteps, not quite following her. Probably just a deer. 

Rose pushed herself to go faster, her breath puffing out in great heaves. She was not scared.

She got home, sweaty and winded from her rapid hike. She hadn't run, Rose Lalonde would never run from the dark. 

She had walked super fast though. She turned on all the lights, generator whirring to life. After setting out some water for tea she did a routine sweep for fires with her binoculars. No smoke, no fire, and certainly nothing Else.

Her walkie talkie crackled.

“Lalonde, hey! I see all your lights up! False alarm with the smoke, huh? I didn't see anything flare up.” 

“Yeah. Yeah false alarm. Just some jackasses with a campfire.”

“Oooh did you issue any tickets?”

“No, no one was up there when I arrived. Fire’s handled though.”

The electric kettle steamed and turned itself off. Rose let the conversation peeter off as well, and quietly drank her tea. Jade kept calling to chatter, but it was nothing that really need a response. It sees silly to voice a fear of alien visitors out in the woods, when the invasion had buckled and passed and left behind regular resident aliens. Perhaps uncharitably, Rose thought to herself that Jade wouldn't understand that Rose was sure she had been watched, and that the hairs on the back of her neck were still on end. Jade wouldn't understand what that meant - Rose prided herself at being unflappable. 

She checked the windows before going to bed. All closed and locked.

The next morning she hiked out and took a service vehicle out of the Park. It was a nice day. Not a cloud in the sky. No reason to think about anything floating out in space. Rose thought about it anyway, wondered what Aradia’s horns looked like, how her body was hooked up to a ship. How lonely she must be.

The door to Kanaya's cabin was wide open when Rose pulled up. She entered the cabin and glanced around. Nothing was out of place, everything was still as Spartan and meticulous as ever, save for the absence of radio equipment. The sheet that had once been draped over the radio setup was now draped across a kitchen chair, the only thing that was new since the last time Rose had been down.

“Kanaya?” Rose called. The whirring of a chainsaw answered her.

Rose followed the sound, to find Kanaya sporting cheap plastic sunglasses and clear cutting the forest.

“Is this necessary?” Rose yelled over the revving sound. Kanaya didn’t hear, so Rose went up to tap her on the shoulder. The chainsaw whizzed past her face as Kanaya whipped around.

“Rose! You really have no sense of self-preservation have you?” The chainsaw came to a halt. Rose took a very deep breath. And then another. Then she leaned forward and put her head in her hands.

“Oh dear, Rose. Maybe take a minute.” Kanaya went back to work hacking up the surrounding forest. Rose took several minutes, then she went to wait inside. She made tea. She read part of Twilight. She examined the vacancy the radio equipment had left, and what appeared to be torn wires and deep grooves in the floor, like it was dragged out. Several hours passed, and the chainsaw never stopped.

Eventually, Kanaya came in.

“Is the forest tamed?”

“I’m not in the mood.” Kanaya spat. She had not worked out whatever she was working out with several hours of chainsawing. Rose left it alone.

“I spoke with Aradia,” she said, instead.

 

Kanaya's mouth hung open briefly before she tried to spit out a sentence. “Aradia? Wh-when did you - what do you mean she - how did you?” She slammed her mouth shut and took a deep breath, pulling the sunglasses off. She had been crying.

“When and how did you speak with her?” She gestured at the empty space in her cabin.

“Found your radio jumble. Out in the woods.”

“You did?”

“Yes, it was odd, just laying out there.”

“Please, would you be able to show me? I do not think I will be able to reconstruct the tower from scratch.”

“Yeah, I took the coordinates. It was weird too, there was like a little camp site near it too.”

“Really? Was anyone there?”

“No, it was empty when I got there. Aradia said she'd received a transmission though, so I just missed whoever it was.”

Rose paused unsure how much to reveal. “Maybe they were still there, just hiding.” That seemed to not give away the definite Not Fright she had felt that night in the woods. “I can drive you out there.” Rose suggested. Better to go together. Kanaya nodded, and followed her out to the truck.

“Actually, I would like to drive,” Kanaya said.

“Sure, that’s fine.” It was not fine, but Rose was not going to argue with her.

“Actually, wait here a moment.” Kanaya went back to the cabin and reemerged with a woodcutter's axe.

“Okay, that's cool, real chill.”

“Would you prefer I get my shotgun?” Kanaya was already halfway into the truck, stooped in awkwardly.

“Nah, it was probably just asshole tourists. You know if they can't knock over thousand year old rock formations they're stealing someone's shit.” Rose clambered into the passenger's seat and buckled up. She did not actually give a single damn about thousand year rock formations, but the way Kanaya’s eyes had widened and her pupils dilated kicked up some shred of altruism deep in Rose’s heart. 

Kanaya shifted into drive, pulled out an inch and then immediately put it back into Park. She turned to look at Rose. 

“Would you prefer to have my shotgun?”

“Y'know, I think it'll escalate things if two Park Rangers are running around with axes and guns. I'll be fine. I'll just get behind you if we run into a bear or anything.”

“Bears are good to eat.” Kanaya pulled out onto the service road and headed to the Park.

“Kanaya did you'll totally just tell me you're eating Park wildlife? I feel like that most violate some sort of ranger code.” 

“It's not Park wildlife if it's not in the Park anymore,” Kanaya grumbled. She glared at Rose and flipped on the radio. It was tuned in between real stations and played only static and the occasional garbled bar of music. 

“Oh, my favorite. The trash sound station. You know my brother’s pretty well known in the trash sound music world?”

“It's soothing,” Kanaya said softly. “It reminds me of my mother a bit.” 

Rose kept her mouth shut, hot guilt blossoming in her belly. She hadn't expected an earnest response. Which she supposed was on her, as Kanaya seemed hard-pressed to give anything but an earnest responses. 

“Oh, but you were being sarcastic.” Kanaya jerked with the realization, and the truck swerved abruptly. 

They didn't talk the rest of the drive, sitting in relative silence punctuated by motherly radio static. Rose pretended like she wasn't keeping watch out of the window. As if something would suddenly run up alongside the car. 

They pulled off on one shoulder when they got close to a good hiking in point. The silence continued, but now without the benefit of radio static.

Rose considered saying things like: “it’s just up here.” Or: “not much farther.” But that seemed like losing so she kept quiet. Kanaya was a formidable opponent.

It had been just a little farther and soon the two rounded on the ash and dirt of the kicked-in campfire. And beyond that -

Nothing.

Kanaya’s shoulders visibly sagged. There was nothing there, barely a depression in the earth where something had lain.

“I swear it was here! I was here and I saw it!”

Kanaya turned to look at her, and there was something odd about her eyes, like she was trying not to cry.

“I talked to her!” Rose was shouting. 

“I believe you.” Rose barely heard her, her voice had gone so soft. She sniffed, pawed at her nose. Rose would have to bail if Kanaya started to cry in front of her. Just sprint back down the mountain. 

“Did she sound okay?” Kanaya’s voice was normal again. How quickly she'd composed herself.

“She didn't sound bad. We didn't really make small talk. She had to change directions at one point?”

Kanaya jerked a little. “Changed directions? She's an orbital helmsman, she shouldn't be moving unless it's something big.”

“I don't know, that's just what she said.” Rose got down on her hands and knees, and began to comb through the high grass. There had to be something here, some wires or loose paneling, even some screws. Her knees were bruising, knocking against rocks and hard earth, but she ignored the indignity of the situation. There had to be something here.

“I believe you.” Kanaya murmured, crouching down by Rose’s side. She put a hand on Rose’s shoulder and let it rest there.

“I’m going to drive you back to my cabin, and then I'm going to come back and look around. It can't just not be here.”

“I can stay and help you look.”

“If we don't find it before it gets dark you won't be able to see. Besides,” Kanaya pulled her hand back “I believe you are supposed to be looking for fires.”

Rose nodded, and let Kanaya walk her back. 

They didn't talk much on the drive down. Rose wanted to fiddle with the radio, unhappily thinking about her own mother, but she didn't think the silence was meant to be aggressive on Kanaya’s end, so she left it alone.

“Hey, Kanaya, do you have any enemies? Someone who’d really want to ruin your life?”

“An odd and personal question. Are you perhaps flirting with me, Rose Lalonde?”

Yes.

“No. Just might there be someone who'd want to fuck with you by stealing your radio equipment?”

“I suppose I might. Not really anyone who is alive anymore. Not really anyone on this planet, even accounting for ghosts. There is that bird who stole a pair of my earrings once. Just flew right in through the window.” Kanaya's grip tightened on the wheel. She glanced at Rose out of the corner of her eye, trying not to look away from the road. “Do you think that bird stole my radio tower, Rose?”

“Why, Miss Maryam, are you deflecting?”

“Why, Miss Lalonde, that does seem much more like a thing that is securely in the your wheelhouse.”

Rose raised a hand to her mouth in mock surprise and let out a tiny gasp.

“Slander!”

Kanaya did dodge the question though.

“What about Aradia?”

Kanaya sighed. “I suppose. She was a battleship at one point before she was transitioned to an orbital. And if not her, her captain certainly has enemies.”

“Kanaya, if there's a vengeful troll veteran running around in the Park-”

“That's a little too petty for my species, don't you think?”

“Oh, I couldn't say, I dropped out of college before I finished my xenostudies degree.”

“I think if someone had an axe to grind with Aradia they might stoop to this, but it seems more like they would literally grind an axe, like against her wiring. Or possibly my face.” Kanaya went rigid and the truck hurtled forward as she unintentionally accelerated. Rose watched the numbers on the speedometer tick up.

“Rose perhaps we should not hang out anymore. For a while.”

“Bummer.”

Kanaya nodded. She didn't slow down. When they the cabin, Kanaya braked hard, the vehicle screeching to a halt.

“Goodbye, for a while.” Kanaya went so far as to reach across Rose to open the passenger-side door.

“See you later. Let me know if you need anything? Like help grinding a revenge axe.”

“Sure.” Kanaya did her best attempt at a smile. It was not quite successful. “Be careful hiking back.” She got out of the truck, and immediately turned to hike back into the Park

Rose started the drive back to her post. She drove slow, so as not to pass Kanaya walking down the road. If she passed her and saw that Kanaya was crying they’d both lose immediately, and also, probably die.

The sun was high overhead, she’d make it back to the fire lookout with time to spare before dark. Not that she was worried.

It wasn’t that she heard something running in the brush besides the road, or that she saw something out of the corner of her eye. Nothing was out of the ordinary. The forest was the same as it always was. But she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was following her. She should have accepted Kanaya’s shotgun.


	9. Chapter 9

The bruises on Rose’s knees were blossoming into an array of yellows and purples. No word from Kanaya in a few days. Everything sucked and she felt small and petty.

She kept getting up out of bed anyway. Needed to look for fires, needed to do some outdoorsy Park bullshit. There was that at least. If she was still at home she’d be spiting her mother by not getting out of bed. But in the Park there was always the threat of smoke, and the potential for radio transmissions. Someone was wiring her right now.

Rose grabbed her radio. “Harley?”

“Yup?”

“What's up?”

“Looking at some trees. You?”

Rose scanned the forest, hoping for a fire. It would be totally cool to talk to Jade about a fire.

“Oh, the usual.” A disappointing lack of smoke was all she could find through the binoculars.

“And what's the usual for Rose Lalonde?”

Rose didn't respond. 

“You still there? I repeat, what's the usual for Rose Lalonde, over.”

“Fucked up over a girl.”

“Oh the usual!” Jade went quiet and Rose was sure she was laughing at her.

“Wait, what girl? How are you meeting girls out here? You didn't enact some daring rescue did you? Scooped a tourist straight out of a bear’s mouth? You've been leaving me out of the loop, Lalonde.”

Rose didn't answer. Instead she decided it was time to clean, really get the cabin organized. She left the radio to shuffle around some old magazines. Perfect. The peak of domesticity. 

“It's Kanaya isn't it? That's chill, she's super hot for a giant bug. Also very sweet and good at cuddling.” 

Rose rushed back to the radio.

“How do you know she's good at cuddling?”

“I don't know, she just looks like she'd be good at cuddling. She's got those long arms and is huge she can probably just engulf you.”

“Yeah but she's also super angular. You're probably just hitting up against pointy hip bones and elbows. Or her exoskeleton.”

“Well, it's weird that you'd go that route when I'm definitely pretty sure it is Kanaya you're fucked up over, but okay, maybe she is bad at cuddling, fine, let's make that assertion.”

“Yes, let's.” Rose had no reason to make that assertion or to agree with it. 

Jades response was laughter. “Hey Rose what if someone's listening in on this channel? Like just accidentally tuning around and they dropped in on this argument. I hope so.”

“Good! I hope so too! I hope they have lots of opinions on Kanaya's cuddle skill level.”

“Oh my god, do you think she's good at kissing? Do you think her fangs get in the way? What if she's bitey? You strike me as being into that.” Rose’s aimless ennui was quickly engulfed in rageful deflection.

“Jade-” Rose tried to cut her off and they wound up talking at the same time, resulting in the radio only emitting static. Rose waited a moment, seeing if Jade would talk first. She didn’t. Rose caved.

“Kanaya said we shouldn’t hang out anymore.”

“Probably because you’re unkind about her exoskeleton.”

Rose rolled her eyes. “Someone out in the woods is after her, and I suppose she is worried about my exoskeleton-less mammal self.”

“Someone’s out to get her?” Jade sounded incredulous.

“Yeah, her or her space girlfirend.”

“Oh yeah, Aradia, I've talked to her before. She's very funny. Someone’s after her?” Rose was stunned at Jade’s social life.

“How have you talked to her?” Kanaya had seemed highly defensive - Rose doubted she would let anyone touch her radio setup. She had that shotgun, after all.

“Oh, I think she triangulated her position incorrectly one time, or some other space nonsense, and pinged my radio instead of Kanaya’s. Rose, that’s really bad, what if it’s some like internal Empire feud stuff? Earth would get fucked up.”

“Why would the Empire be involved.”

“I think Aradia might be a, like an, Imperial vessel. For the Empire.”

“Kanaya said she was an orbital.”

“Yeah, for the Condescension.”

Shit. Kanaya had played that right off, if it was the case. Rose couldn’t believe she’d been gotten the better of.

She peered through her binoculars, trying to regain control of some sort of situation. And there it was. Telltale smoke in the distance. Wispy and cloudlike, the color was off for a simple raincloud. Off for a regular forest fire too. Grey, but with violent green streaks twisting in the wind as well.

“Harley, there’s a fire.” Silence on the other end. “Harley.” Rose repeated, staring at the fire. A pit of foreboding was opening up in her stomach, sucking the rest of her organs in. Something was very wrong. “Harley!”

“I copy, I’m looking for it.” 

“North-east of my location.” 

“I see it. Rose, the color’s weird.”

“Any thoughts?” Rose was taking down the coordinates to radio out. 

“I mean, boron, or like, copper, can make a flame green. Not the smoke though.”

“Yeah.”

“Pretty hecked up.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m calling it in.”

“I’m heading towards it.”

“What? Rose, you can’t -”

Rose was already out the door, Jade’s voice growing dimmer in the distance as she rushed out. She was going to get the bottom of this, intergalactic monarchical feud or no.


	10. Chapter 10

Rose crashed through the forest, tearing towards the smoke. The smell was wrong, more acidic than normal forest fire. She headed down a canyon, the rock face rising up on either side of her. Water had once carved a path here, but the riverbed was now dry. Rose tripped on something, and landed by smacking her face straight into the ground.

She sat up, and pawed at her face. A nose bled, but nothing much worse than that. She looked around for what had tripped her, ready to wipe whatever it was off the face of the Earth.

It was a boot. Half-buried in the dirt, made of a shiny, metallic material. Like an astronaut in a bad 70s sci-fi. Or an alien. But that was silly, Rose thought. Earth had those already, and they tended towards more fashionable footwear, in her experience.

She reached out to pull the boot up for further examination. A leg came with it. Or rather, the remains of a leg, more silver material and a long bone. Didn’t look quite human though. It was too short, and the shape was off. There was a big black hole through part of it, like a laser had shot through it. Rose put it back in the ground, for lack of a better course of action.

Dusting herself off, she got up and headed towards the smoke again, slower this time, more cautious. The forest thinned, partly a natural clearing, and partly from the metal debris scattered around. They’d leveled the few trees on impact.

“Shit.” Rose whispered. There had been a UFO crash. She supposed what she had made the crater a few weeks ago had been the main bulk of the ship, and this was part that had fallen away on entry.

Or more likely, an escape pod. The silver orb sat at the end of the canyon. It was in bad shape - just a husk, holes punched all through it. The smoke was rising from it, and there were electrical sparks flying from it’s center. Rose crouched down, trying to approach it and get the jump on whoever had started the fire inside. There was a figure moving around in the smoke.

It was a gray alien, or more precisely a graylien, since earth had already seen its share of aliens who were gray. It looked like something straight out of the X-Files, a show rose Lalonde had never watched, given that it sort of lost its appeal when real aliens just appeared and took up normal Earth lives. Rose was nevertheless certain that this alien would not be out of place in the campy 90s tv show, and that fact alone seemed to have over-ridden her fight or flight response. She just stood there checking off all the stereotypical graylien traits in her head. Huge head? Check. Bulbous black eyes? Check. Silver reflective space suit? Check. Tiny ray gun pointing right at her? Also check.

A series of lights flickered on along the ray gun’s sides, accompanied by a whirring sound, and Rose had just enough time to stiffen her spine and think ‘Shit,’ before dropping to the ground. Smoke and an acrid burning smell filled the air. Her shoulder had gone numb.

She scuttled, a rapid, ungraceful movement across the ground until she was behind a boulder. Her shoulder was raw, smoking, a cauterized carpet-burn. 

The alien’s walk was loud, it’s suit heavy and bulky. It's feet dragged in the dirt. It made some sort of garbled noises, maybe it was trying to tell her resistance was futile. 

The whirring started up again. The whirring turned into a roar. A blur rocketed past Rose and towards the alien.

Kanaya Maryam, seven glorious feet of fangs and muscle and chainsaw, was on the alien before it could react. The screaming of the chainsaw punctuated the hissing sound the graylien’s suit made as it was punctured, and all its breathable air escaped. If Kanaya hadn’t kept pressing the chainsaw down and through the alien until the tip hit the earth behind it, Earth’s atmosphere would have dropped the alien dead after a suit puncture like that. Only a little overkill, then, on Kanaya’s part.

“Shit,” Rose said again, still caught up on her last thought. Kanaya was breathing heavily, and only glanced in Rose’s direction for a second, before turning her attention back to the cleaved graylien. Almost like she was expecting it was going to get back up.

“Really it could only kick at your shins.”

“What?” Kanaya spared her a longer glance. 

“Y’know, with its lower half. The leg parts.” Leg parts would likely go down in Rose’s personal lexiconal history, as a feat of impressive wordsmanship. Kanaya was likely super impressed.

So impressed that she was moved beyond words, only able to press her lips into as thin a line as they could go around her jutting vampiric chompers. “Hmm.” was all she could say in response.

She turned her back on Rose and walked closer to the bits of damaged vessel behind the bissected body. The smoke had begun to dissipate, whatever electrical fire burning within starting to gutter out. Kanaya began to rummage around in the metal mess. Rose could hear her mumbling to herself. Rose crept closer to her, careful to avoid the body and the gun where it had fallen on the ground.

“Well, at least some of my radio pieces are still identifiable as having once been radio pieces. I’m not particularly good at this sort of thing, but I believe I can reconstitute these and possibly scrap together a working radio tower again, although I worry that the signal won’t be strong enough, oh, Rose are you alright?”

It was a nice afterthought, that worry for Rose’s safety. “Yeah, I’m fine. Were you looking for me?”

“Yes, I thought I had been curt after our last conversation and was looking to apologize. However, when I attempted to radio you I received only static. I contacted Harley, as she is your best friend and confidant, who also was receiving radio silence from you, and fearing the worst, I set out to find you.” Kanaya turned back to the wreckage almost immediately. A very nice, very long afterthought. 

“So, what exactly are you looking for, here?” 

“I believe this” Kanay motioned backwards towards the dead greylien, “is the culprit of the theft of my radio tower. I would very much like to speak with Aradia again.” As she said that, the radio emitted a burst of static, which resolved itself into a comprehensible voice.

“Hello? Hello? Who’s this? This is a restricted channel, ya know? Not that I care at all but the new boss might, if she catches you. Maybe not though, who knows anymore?” Aradia seemed quite jovial.

“New?” Kanaya sounded like the air had just been kicked out of her lungs but she hadn’t quite realized it yet.

“Kanaya? Kanaya is that you! Oh my goodness! We haven't talked in forever! Did you get your your radio problems sorted out? You know, I talked to that human you are fond of, flower name? She seems quite nice.”

“Rose?”

“Yeah her.”

“Aradia - new boss?” 

“Yeah her. She wants me to say ‘glub, glub, glub’ to you. Which seems a little asinine. But who am I to say really, just a simple helmsman.”

Kanaya gasped. “Feferi? I thought she'd been culled?” 

“Guess not! I have a chair now, it’s very nice. No more dangling on my shoulders.” The radio popped, like Aradia was leaning forward and putting her mouth right on the mic. “I suspect this may be a ruse. But it’s nice at the moment. Fix your radio tower, and I’ll keep you updated.”

“How did, how did she?” Rose had no idea what was going on, but Kanaya was stunned beyond words.

“Some greylines tried to muscle in on our turf, I guess. Fef used their attack as cover to off the Condesce.”

“Aradia, I just killed one.”

“Oh, dang? Guess they were trying to start something on Earth then. It stole your radio tower?”

“Yeah.”

“Probably trying to get a message out to someone. Hey Fef -” Aradia called before her voice got muffled, as she spoke with someone out of range of the radio. Her voice popped again. “Should be cleared up soon. Doesn't matter either way though, hey? Long as you fix your radio station and I don’t get blown out of orbit, who really cares.”

Kanaya smiled, and Rose could have sworn she was sniffing back tears. “Yes, Aradia, I -”

“Tell your new whoever to set up a mail system with Earth.” Rose shouted over whatever heartfelt goodbye Kanaya was trying to start up. Kanaya glared.

“So you can get postcards.”

“I’ve heard of those! Sounds nice, I’ll tell her high and mighty glub to get on it. And to get me a seat with armrests. Talk to you later Kanaya, gotta get into battle mode.” The radio staticked out again. Kanay reached into the escape pod and disconnected what was left of her equipment. She held it gingerly.

“I suppose you saved my life.” Rose said.

“Yes. And suppose you helped me locate my equipment so I can contact my moirail again.

“Yes.”

“I suppose I should also kiss you now.”

Before Rose could get out her yes, Kanay had leaned down and kissed her. It was uncoordinated, her fangs clinked against Rose’s front teeth, but that was all right. Kanaya pulled away, sheepishly. 

“We are going to hold hands now,” she stated matter-of-factly, and went for it. Rose laughed. 

“All it took was a minor alien invasion.”

“That’s how all my relationships go. You’ll help me fix my radio equipment, won’t you, Ms. Lalonde?”

“Why of course, Ms. Maryam.”

They left the canyon hand in hand, the fire behind them extinguished.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end!
> 
> This is my first long-fic. I struggled with the pacing a bit, but I hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
